Government Shutdown-Patent & Trademark Office
With a government shutdown in effect as of midnight on January 20th, you may be concerned about how that will impact your upcoming or pending applications, and your existing patents and trademark registrations. For the time being, there is nothing to worry about. The United States Patent and Trademark Office will continue to operate normally […]
Movie Releases and Image Integrity: Recent Horror Film Interferes with Businesses Nationwide
The first trailer for the remake of Stephen King’s 1986 It was released on April 1. The trailer racked up more than 197 million shares and more than 246 million views on Youtube—a record of note. Once starring Tim Curry as Pennywise, a shapeshifting demon clown figure, the modern It follows several children on their […]
Trademark-Related Solicitations and How to Avoid Them
Trademark applicants should be aware of an ongoing scam involving notices sent by private companies. These companies commonly have names that resemble official government agencies, and notices appear to be correspondence from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). For example, the notices will alert you of an upcoming filing deadline and often request […]
Tractors, Technology, and the Battle for Ownership in the Age of Digital Transformation
Back in 2015, John Deere attracted attention for telling the Copyright Office that farmers don’t own their tractors. Deere was trying to prevent access to the software keys that allow for repairs to the machinery, basing its reasoning on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which governs the copyright protection of software. Essentially, because tractors […]
What is trademark squatting? The story of Beyonce’s babies
While Beyoncé didn’t officially announce the names of her twins until recently, the Beyhive has known for a while, thanks to a couple of trademark applications filed by the same trademark holding company she used to file Blue Ivy’s namesake mark back in 2012. The applications are for the marks SIR CARTER and RUMI CARTER […]
AI vs. IP: Will Improving AI Technology Impact Intellectual Property?
Google’s DeepMind engineers recently published a paper which discusses the creation of a new artificial intelligence (AI) system capable of human-like thought. This new AI represents a breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence, as most AI systems suffer from a problem called “catastrophic forgetting.” This is a problem similar to amnesia in humans, where […]
